Social Construction of Language Learners: A Bakhtinian Analysis of EFL Learners’ Subjectivity in the Multilingual Context of Pakistan

Abstract

ESL/EFL scholarship has traditionally adopted a cognitivist andpsychoanalytical approach towards learning a language based on the premisethat languages are abstract unitary systems. In recent decades, however, therehas been a greater emphasis on the role of social, cultural, andautobiographical factors in language learning. Bakhtin’s socially-orientedphilosophy of language offers a useful lens to view EFL learning as a situatedactivity and EFL learners as multidimensional social actors who configuretheir English learning trajectories within broader social and institutionalfactors. Based on a broader ethnographic study, analysis in this article takes aBakhtinian perspective to understand how multilingual EFL learners innorthern Pakistan construct their identity at the intersection of social,domestic, and future-oriented factors. The analysis shows that locallanguages, school, and family language policies, and imagined Englishspeaking communities have significant implications for learners' orientationand motivation towards learning EFL. The article suggests that responding tothe social turn in applied linguistics, EFL classroom, and pedagogy inPakistan needs to broaden its purview to support individual learnerseffectively negotiate their complex learning trajectories and build empoweringlearner identities.